To begin with, the story of ‘’Annihilation’ is intentionally disorienting. Somewhere on the eastern seaboard, a region square miles in size seems to have undergone a radical transformation. Only a little way inside the perimeter is visible. In this region called ‘the shimmer’, the standard laws of physics are upended. Dozens of explorers, all men, have been sent in to investigate this weird space. None have returned and are assumed dead. We follow a squad of five, this time all women, and experience this piece of truly alien real estate.

What demands would a plot like this place on the score? The music should sound alien and should itself be disorienting. Those modest goals the score does well. There is nothing for the happy viewer to hum to himself leaving the theatre. There is no melody and no harmony in almost any of the score. If that is the intention of the composer, that is indeed the tone that the score does project. Divorced from the rest of the film, the music is possibly not recognisable as music. Most to the music falls into a short spectrum from raucous to peaceful to soporific. There is some recognisably choral music somewhere about track 6, but there are no words sung. Other places, we hear what sounds like an electronic oscillator and just for variety. It sounds like the buzzing of insects or a radio tuned in to another dimension. For variety’s sake, they have some guitar music in tracks 2 and 6. This is still all texture music. Its main message is you do not understand what happens in the shimmer and you never will.